The Syllabus: What you need to know for the July 7 ‘MHP’

The sting of injustices new and old will resonate throughout the discussions planned for Sunday’s Melissa Harris-Perry, our second live show from the Essence Festival in New Orleans.

For one, do you remember what happened to Shirley Sherrod? The former U.S. Department of Agriculture official was forced out of her job almost exactly three years ago when remarks she made at an NAACP event were deemed to be racist by a conservative website publisher. After the resultant hubbub sorted itself out and context emerged, those allegations turned out to be provably false.

Sherrod, a former farmer herself and a guest on Sunday’s MHP, was also a plaintiff in the class action suit Pigford v. Glickman–which alleged racial discrimination in farm loans over nearly a 20-year period. The $1.2 billion Pigford settlement is due to be paid out by the middle of this month, and we’ll talk about that as well as the recent farm bill fiasco in Congress with Sherrod and several others on our panel.

Still, though so much struggle still continues, we’ll talk to inspirational author Iyanla Vanzant live on set about ways to deal with those struggles and emerge renewed. And let’s just say you will not want to miss how Harris-Perry will end her weekend in her hometown.